


Eyes of the Dead

by AngelTitan114



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, Other, centered around chrom, chrom becomes pretty dark in the future, more time travelling, robin is a different gender in both timelines, timelines collide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9603980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelTitan114/pseuds/AngelTitan114
Summary: Chrom finds his own eyes in a traveler outside of camp. To his surprise, they are his eyes; just not from his own time.Chrom meets Future Chrom and an adventure ensues. Robin meets his genderbent self and realizes she is his wife's mother. Will others meet their future and alternate selves? What is so drastically different between the two timelines that Chrom actually survived to see 40? Why have they come back in time to begin with?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place just after Chapter 16 and long before Chapter 17, and all the paralogues have been cleared. People from a different timeline suddenly appear in Ylisse, bearing a striking resemblance to everyone from the current timeline.

Chrom did not think it was physically possible to ever stare into his own eyes without the use of a mirror. Today, however, Naga proved him fiercely wrong.

“Who are you?!” he cried to the stranger across the dim clearing, though somewhere deep inside, he already knew. He had only come out for a step away from the camp, ready to hear more of Robin’s beratings when he returned. The commotion of the war had kept the tactician on edge as of late, and even though he had only just passed his nineteenth summer, Chrom’s son-in-law and sworn brother still treated the Exalt as if he were the younger of them.

Now, it was going to be a feat to explain what Chrom had found in the forest.

“Gods…” the stranger murmured, aghast as he watched Chrom. His gaze fell upon Falchion, which the Exalt held at arm’s length to intimidate the stranger, though it was to no avail. “It can’t be…”

“I’ll ask again who you are!” Chrom called again, becoming more and more wary of the man. He wore a paladin’s armour, though it bore a similar deep blue to Chrom’s own outfit, and those eyes that watched Chrom’s sword were eyes he recognized as his own.

Before him either stood his long-dead father or his own future self.

“I think you only have to look at me to know my name,” the stranger stated, his voice louder this time as he stepped into the light. When Chrom took in the man’s full appearance, he suddenly felt extremely faint. “The question is, how is it that I am here?”

“Have you come to change something of the past?” the Exalt questioned, forcing down the tremble in his words. “Will something happen that creates your future? If so, you’d ought to get in line: we have more than our fair share of time travellers attempting to change their future.”

The man frowned. “Something like this has happened before in your world?”

It was Chrom’s turn to be confused, and he lowered Falchion. “It has. But not in yours?”

“Not that I am aware of.” The man suddenly paused, meeting Chrom’s eye directly. “Is there things different in this world? Things that these time travellers have changed? Things that could make my time invalid?”

“I-” Chrom began, but could not continue.

“Chrom, where in Naga’s name- oh, there you are. Gods, I swear, if I ever find you…”

Chrom’s eyes widened as Robin wandered into the clearing, seeing him before noticing the man. “What… What’s going on?” the tactician asked Chrom hesitantly, though dared not take his silver eyes off the man, who suddenly looked taken aback.

“Marc?!” he cried upon seeing Robin, and took a step forward with a smile finding its way onto his features. In an instant, both Chrom and Robin had raised their swords against him, and the man backed off. “You’re alive?!”

“You’ve been mistakened, um…” Robin did not say his name. “My name is not Marc; it is Robin.”

“Friend, this is my tactician, Robin,” Chrom introduced the youngest of the three, who still looked fairly frightened. “I assume he would look much younger than your Robin does, but-”

“My Robin is a she, and she is my wife.”

A pause.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“The Robin of my time,” the man said slowly, eyes on Robin still, “is my wife, and I just mistook you for our son, Marc.” He chuckled morbidly. “A cruel jape, your appearance is, tactician.”

Robin glanced to Chrom hesitantly, sword still raised. “Chrom, is this who I think it is?”

“I’d assume so,” the man called, overtaking the conversation again. “My name is Chrom, Exalt of Ylisse, wielder of Exalted Falchion, and I have no idea how I made my way to this time. But, seeing as you are a male, Robin, I’d say this is instead an alternate timeline from my own.”

Silence fell over the clearing as the man spoke the truth the two younger men dreaded hearing. A Chrom from an alternate future? Perhaps the one that Lucina and the other children were from? That did not seem likely, Chrom thought as he narrowed his gaze on his future self. Lucina said her father died when she was nine; also, the fact that this Chrom’s wife was a female version of Robin. Chrom’s own wife was Sully, and it did not seem this Chrom had any affiliation with the cavalier.

“Did you travel here with anyone else?” Robin eventually broke the silence, slowly sheathing his sword. Chrom followed suit, seeing as it would be pointless for the future Chrom to attack himself.

“Perhaps,” the future Chrom spoke, crossing his arms and rubbing his fingers against the goatee on his chin. “I was in the midst of battle before I took a step and landed here. The enemy’s leader was gifted in dark magic; perhaps she performed the same magic that sent your time travellers here.”

“This is an odd predicament, to be sure,” Robin murmured, frowning and clasping his hands. After a moment of thought, he said, “I would say your best course of action is to accompany us and lend us your strength until we can find your companions, if any, and figure out a solution to return you home. Do you agree, Chrom?”

“Yes,” both Chroms spoke in unison in eerily similar voices, and glanced at each other with sharp looks. Robin stifled a chuckle, but nodded.

“It may be favourable to use a different name, sir,” Robin told the future Chrom, who also nodded in agreement. “Perhaps the name you mention earlier; Marc, was it-”

_“No.”_

Chrom and Robin both looked at the man, taken aback at how ominous and threatening his voice had suddenly become. Not surprisingly, his aura shifted as well, and his eyes darkened as he gave a look that spoke he was firm on his decision. “I will not steal the name of the son I bore and lost. For now… just call me Marth.”

“I don’t think that one will work either,” Robin stated, not fazed by the man’s harshness. “We’ve already had someone use that alias.”

The future Chrom _tch_ ed, but relented. “Hector, then. Call me Hector.”

“You will also need to part with your sword, _Hector._ ”

“You will not-” but the future Chrom, Hector now, stopped his words in mid-sentence, realizing what Chrom meant. Begrudgingly, he unstrapped his sword from his hip and stepped forward to hand it over to Chrom. “I will see this again,” Hector swore, gaze locked with Chrom’s as the sword changed hands. “This is the sword I have protected Ylisse with for thirty years, and I will not see it lost until it is in the possession of my daughter; do you understand, _Chrom?_ ”

Chrom knew immediately there would be tension between him and this man. He was nothing like Chrom; he was almost a mirror image of Chrom’s father.

 

***

 

“You married my _daughter?!”_

“Would you keep your voice down?!” Robin implored Hector, who had stood suddenly and looked about ready to wring Robin. Chrom sighed, though was sympathetic; he had the same reaction when Robin and Lucina had announced their marriage three months prior. He had been even more horrified when Morgan appeared and claimed to be their future daughter. Not only was his daughter a similar age to him, but his granddaughter was as well.

Currently, they sat in Chrom’s tent, Sully out for training with Kjelle and Lucina in Robin’s tent across the camp. It was a feat creating Hector’s identity, but it worked well enough that no one questioned Chrom’s uncanny similarities to him when they brought him into the camp under the cover of darkness.

“How dare you defile her, you craven _child!”_ Hector hissed, though sat once more. “How old is Lucina in this time anyways?!”

“She is nineteen,” Robin assured Hector hurriedly, seeing where that conversation could have gone. “She is still pure, I can assure you, sir. And besides, she isn’t _your_ daughter!”

“She is not his either, though, is she?!” Hector countered, pointing a finger at Chrom without looking at him. Chrom sighed and shook his head, tired of their banter. Is this how Hector spoke with his time’s Robin? Hardly the sort of relationship that would lead to marriage.

“And Morgan?” Hector suddenly asked, taking Robin and Chrom by surprise. “What have you done with her?!”

“Morgan is my daughter!” Robin cried, horrified by what Hector was suggesting. “I would never lay a finger on her!”

“She’s _your_ daughter?” Hector clarified, suddenly looked lost. He glanced at Chrom. “You don’t have another daughter?”

“I do, but her name is Kjelle, and she is nothing like our Morgan,” Chrom confirmed with a nod. He laughed, heartened by the new emotion Hector had shown. “So you have three children? That must be a handful.”

Hector suddenly lost his expression and his face darkened. Chrom remembered shamefully that his third child, Marc, was a subject he was touchy about. He had not been clear, but it sounded as if Marc was either missing or dead in his time. Chrom could not even begin to imagine how it felt for the man.

“You said you have been wielding Falchion for thirty years,” Robin quickly changed the subject, catching Hector’s attention once more. “How old are you then? Chrom has only had hold on it for just over ten years.”

“My last summer was my forty-third one,” Hector disclosed. He huffed a laugh and looked at Chrom. "When I was as young and handsome as you, the war with Plegia had only just begun. Gods, that brings back memories…”

“Would you mind...perhaps, telling us more of your time?” Chrom asked, pulling Hector from his own thoughts. “It would be interesting to see how many differences there are between our worlds, to say the least.”

After a moment, Hector shrugged indifferently. “I suppose I could. What do you want to know?”

“What is Ylisse like?”

“Well, we aren’t in full tilt war, I can tell you that,” Hector laughed. “Just skirmishes with the remaining Grimleal.”

“You defeated Grima then?!” Chrom jumped in, both him and Robin attentive. “How?!”

“We didn’t defeat the damned thing,” Hector admitted venomously, rubbing his dull eyes. “I wouldn’t let Robin die to save us, so I killed the thing’s host myself. That only sealed it again. It isn’t dead.

“Besides the Grimleal, there isn’t much conflict anymore,” Hector went on, skipping over Grima altogether. “Heh, and that old coot Basilio is Khan right now. He took up Owain as his champion after Lon’qu refused a hundred times.”

“Owain? You mean Lissa’s son?”

“Lissa and Lon’qu’s son, yes,” Hector nodded. “That was why Basilio chose Owain in the first place; because he was Lon’qu’s boy.”

Robin and Chrom exchanged looks, then glanced back to Hector. “My sister married Lon’qu in your time?” Chrom asked, confusion evident in his words. “Not Stahl?”

 _“Stahl?!”_ Hector guffawed, snorting with laughter. “Gods, _no!_ You couldn’t pry Stahl from Cordelia, let alone have him marry any other woman! Besides, it was just a matter of time before Lissa charmed that anti-womanizer into her bed.”

“You’re fairly vulgar, you know that?” Robin commented with a deadpan look while Hector continued to laugh, Chrom suddenly blushing at such words being spoken about his little sister, who was only seventeen at the moment.

“So Lissa married Stahl here?” Hector continued, now very interested in such gossip.

“They aren’t married yet; Stahl is courting her,” Chrom answered, rubbing his face to rid himself of his flushed colour.

“And she didn’t even have a fling with Lon’qu? Interesting…”

“Lon’qu is almost a decade older than her!” Chrom cried, blushing once again. Gods, he was a married man with a child; why was he blushing so profusely?! This man just had no filter! How could he possibly be a future version of Chrom?

The three of them spoke for a while longer, late into the night; Chrom even had to explain to Sully when she returned why there was their son-in-law and the ‘new recruit’ in their tent. Eventually, they moved Hector to a tent of his own when they realized how late it had gotten.

“You’re saying Gaius and you aren’t even that close?” Chrom laughed as they walked on either side of Hector, who nodded.

“Gaius never took a liking to me, I suppose. No, he was closer with the boys of lower class, like Stahl and Kellam. I was too ‘pampered’ for him.”

Chrom laughed, knowing the Gaius of his time had been just the same before they actually got to know each other. “Maybe you should talk to the man once in awhile…”

“Yo, Chrom! You got a sec?”

Chrom held up and turned at the sound of the voice. “Yeah, Vaike, just a moment- Hm?”

Chrom stopped mid-sentence when he saw Hector glance back as well, and his smile drop the instant he saw Vaike behind them. Vaike merely grinned at them. “Hector? What is it?”

“Ah, Hector’s your name?” Vaike said, folding his bulky arms over his chest. “You look like you could hold your own against the-”

“Vaike?”

Vaike frowned, but laughed nonetheless. “Ha, yeah! That’s me! The Vaike-Oof!”

All three men gawked as Hector suddenly embraced Vaike tightly. “Gods, Vaike, you don’t know how good it is to see you again,” Hector said, then held the bewildered Vaike at arms length. “You still’ve got all that fire in your eyes, thank the Gods…”

“Um…” Vaike’s wide and confused eyes found Chrom’s with a nervous laugh. “Are… are ya a fan or somethin’? You’re pretty touchy feely for a fan, gotta admit…”

Hector paused, then scrambled away from Vaike as quickly as he had hugged him. “Forgive me,” he murmured, eyes wide as he realized what he had done. “I… Goodnight, Chrom, Robin.” Without another word, Hector disappeared to his tent.

“What was that all about?” Vaike asked no one in particular, still bewildered. But Chrom could have guessed, putting two and two together.

Gods, this was going to be difficult.


End file.
